Surely I am presumptuous to write of a man unknown to me, even with our common interest of cardiology. However, now that I have completed this biography I feel I do know him - just a little.

Harry Stephenson Lucraft, the son of a grocer, was born in Adelaide, attended Scotch College in Perth, and graduated in medicine at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, albeit delayed by dangerous naval service in the North Sea during World War I. His peripatetic habits continued with his return to Western Australia for a two year sojourn as district medical officer in Norseman; a return to London to practise in Dulwich and to obtain further degrees including a Doctorate in Medicine, and finally back again to Perth entering a suburban general practice.

By accounts of his interest and ability in internal medicine it occasions no surprise that he should once more return to England to sit and pass the Membership of the Royal College of Physicians at the age of forty years. On his return to Perth he entered consultant practice with a special interest in cardiology.

During World War II he was appointed a medical specialist to Western Command but he was sequestered in Perth, to his bitter chagrin, presumably in view of his short five feet two inches stature. His professional life was consumed by the care of patients; he did not write articles or publish scientific papers, and teaching was not his forte, but his medical competence was unquestioned and a quote from his obituary gives succinctly the widely held opinion of him: ‘Some physicians during their lifetime gain the general respect of colleagues and patients. Some - a smaller number - gain admiration as well. A select few win respect, admiration and, in addition, great affection. Of these was Lucraft.’

In his hobbies, too, excellence was achieved for he was a skilled and artistic amateur photographer (perhaps this skill was almost a prerequisite for electrocardiograms of the time?). He carried his camera in his car at all times just in case a misty scene appeared - he favoured mistscapes. It is said that he became a life president of the Van Raalte Photographic Club - the name originating from lectures given by Henri Van Raalte, the celebrated etcher who became curator of the National Gallery in Adelaide in 1921, who also had a great interest in photography.

Harry Lucraft’s daughters are still pervaded by love for this man; clearly his family was of utmost importance and concern to him. Each morning, as he shaved, looking in the mirror he would compose verse out loud. None was ever published, but his daughter Daphne remembers a verse that used to accompany a love potion on sale at the opening of a small shopping precinct - London Court:

A melancholy misanthrope,
alone, aloof, apart,
do you lack a lodger
for your lonesome little heart?
Then drink this brew
from morning dew
(by magic it’s distilled)
and lo! Prince Charming straight appears,
the vacancy is filled.

He died in the institution that he had served, the Royal Perth Hospital, on Christmas Eve 1953, from the presumed legacy of cigarette smoking.